People still differ as to the cause in which Cromwell embarked, and few defend the means he used to accomplish his ends.  He does not stand out as a perfect man; he made mistakes, and committed political crimes which can be defended only on grounds of expediency.  But his private life was above reproach, and he died in the triumph of Christian faith, after having raised his country to a higher pitch of glory than had been seen since the days of Queen Elizabeth.

The faults of the biographer centre in confounding right with might; and this conspicuously false doctrine is the leading defect of the philosophy of Carlyle, runs through all his writings, and makes him an unsound teacher.  If this doctrine be true, then all the usurpers of the world from Caesar to Napoleon can be justified.  If this be true, then an irresistible imperialism becomes the best government for mankind.  It is but fair to say that Carlyle himself denied this inference.  Writing of Lecky’s having charged him with believing in the divine right of strength, he says:—­

“With respect to that poor heresy of might being the symbol of right ’to a certain great and venerable author,’ I shall have to tell Lecky one day that quite the converse or reverse is the great and venerable author’s real opinion,—­namely, that right is the eternal symbol of might; ... in fact, he probably never met with a son of Adam more contemptuous of might except when it rests on the above origin.”

Yet the impression of all his strongest work is the other way.

Certain other kindred doctrines may be inferentially drawn from Carlyle’s defence of Cromwell; namely, that a popular assembly is incapable of guiding successfully the destinies of a nation; that behind all constitutions lies an ultimate law of force; that majorities, as such, have no more right to rule than kings and nobles; that the strongest are the best, and the best are the strongest; that the right to rule lies with those who are right in mind and heart, as he supposed Cromwell to be, and who can execute their convictions.  Such teachings, it need not be shown, are at war with the whole progress of modern society and the enlightened opinion of mankind.

The great merit of Carlyle’s History is in the clearness and vividness with which he paints his hero and the exposure of the injustice with which he has been treated by historians.  It is an able vindication of Cromwell’s character.  But the deductions drawn from his philosophy lead to absurdity, and are an insult to the understanding of the world.

It was about this time, on the conclusion of the “Cromwell,” when he was on the summit of his literary fame, and the world began to shower its favors upon him, that Carlyle’s days were saddened by a domestic trouble which gave him inexpressible solicitude and grief.  His wife, with whom he had lived happily for so many years, was exceedingly disturbed on account of his intimate friendship with Lady Ashburton.  Nothing can be more plaintive and sadly beautiful than the letters he wrote to her on the occasion of her starting off in a fit of spleen, after a stormy scene, to visit friends at a distance; and what is singular is that we do not find in those letters, when his soul was moved to its very depths, any of his peculiarities of style.  They are remarkably simple as well as serious.